HTC-Leo or HTC HD 2 !

The buzz word in the portable space appears to be HD at the moment, with the latest bandwagon member being HTC and its HD 2 (formerly known as the HTC Leo, maybe).

The Leo—sorry, HD 2—if you'll remember, was that big and beautiful handset that was saw earlier this month. The 4.3-inch screen was impressive, but so too was HTC's ability to work around Windows Mobile's lack of support for multitouch capacitive screens.This latest reveal/leak allegedly shows that HTC had second thoughts about a mini-USB connector, as this version, if the real deal, now sports a micro-USB.

Battery life was rated at 1200Mha, and the name change for the phone, HD 2, was discovered while snooping around in the Bluetooth settings.

☼Source ►Gizmodo

Mystic Apple Tablet!

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Steve Jobs said people don't read any more. But Apple is talks with several media companies rooted in print, negotiating content for a "new device." And they're not just going for e-books and mags. They're aiming to redefine print. Several years ago, a modified version of OS X was presented to Steve Jobs, running on a multitouch tablet. When the question of "what would people do with this?" couldn't be answered, they shelved it. Long having established music, movie and TV content, Apple is working hard to load up iTunes with print content from several major publishing houses across several media.

Two people related to the NYTimes have separately told me that in June, paper was approached by Apple to talk about putting the paper on a "new device." The R&D labs have long worked on versions of the paper meant to be navigated without a keyboard or mouse, showing up on Windows tablets and on multiple formats using Adobe Air. The NYTimes, of course, also publishes via their iPhone application. Jobs has, during past keynotes, called the NYTimes the "best newspaper in the world."
A person close to a VP in textbook publishing mentioned to me in July that McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are working with Apple to move textbooks to iTunes. There was no mention of any more detail than that, but it does link back to a private Apple intern idea competition held on campus, in their Town Hall meeting area in 2008, where the winning presentation selected by executives was one focused on textbook distribution through iTunes. The logic here is that textbooks are sold new at a few hundred dollars, and resold by local stores without any kickbacks to publishers. A DRM'd one-time-use book would not only be attractive because publishers would earn more money, but electronic text books would be able to be sold for a fraction of the cost, cutting out book stores and creating a landslide marketshare shift by means of that huge price differential. (If that device were a tablet, the savings on books could pay for the device, and save students a lot of back pain.)
Apple also recently had several executives from one of the largest magazine groups at their Cupertino's campus, where they were asked to present their ideas on the future of publishing. Several mockups of magazines were present in interactive form. It is presumed that more talks took place after the introduction and investigatory meeting. Some magazine company is also considering Adobe Air as a competing option for digital magazines, but without a revenue/distribution system that iTunes has, it seems unlikely.
I haven't heard anything about traditional book publishers being approached yet, but given the scope of the rest of the publishing industry's involvement, it's not hard to imagine they're on board as well. (If you know something, please drop me a line.)
Another source corroborates that the January announce date others have reported is correct within the month, with this information heard from a high level.
Some I've talked to believe the initial content will be mere translations of text to tablet form. But while the idea of print on the Tablet is enticing, it's nothing the Kindle or any E-Ink device couldn't do. The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video, interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft's Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static e-ink, it appears that Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content. First, it'll get its feet wet with more basic repurposing of the stuff found on dead trees today.

☼Article source ► Gizmodo

Courier:Microsoft secret tablet flashed.

We’ve waxed poetic about Apple’s mythical Tablet recently (and even seen some more evidence to support it). But Microsoft, too, has a rather attractive looking tablet-like device in the speculative stages as well: the Courier.

Now, a leaked video of the Courier’s user interface sheds more light on some of the design aesthetic behind this still unconfirmed device that appears to be part tablet and part digital planner, with a dual-screen hinged design and pen and finger controls.

In the video, unearthed by Gizmodo, we see a very fluid interface where any item can be drag and dropped easily. The overarching metaphor is apparently dubbed the “infinite journal,” where items can be clipped and stored from the web, annotated and highlighted, moved around, and modified with a palette of drawing and design tools.

An on-board camera handles bringing in visuals and documents from the physical world as well. Everything is searchable for later retrieval, with a Courier Pen handling text input duties. Of course the device overall is a touchscreen, and designed with finger control and gestures in mind as well.

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Easy Publishing, But No Apps?

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According to the video, publishing from your Infinite Journal is easy, with pages and sections exporting to Courier files, Powerpoint presentations, or PDFs. And according to Mary-Jo Foley, the device will run Windows 7 … but not be able to install Windows 7 applications. Say what?
Yep — apparently that’s because someone up high thinks the first generation of Microsoft Tablets failed because the apps weren’t specific to the form factor. There could be some truth in there but still — we hope for Microsoft’s sake they come up with a better alternative app store than what they’ve done with the Zune HD to-date.
Check out the video below and let us know what you think: are you sweating this device? Which interests you more: the mythical Apple Tablet, or the mythical Microsoft Courier?

Source ►TechCrunch   Image by ► Gizmodo  ☺☺☺

Xobni Brings Twitter To Your Inbox

Earlier tonight, Xobni quietly released, at least to some users, a new version of its Outlook plug-in that brings Twitter streams into your email in an intelligent way. Instead of acting like any other Twitter client and showing you the full stream of everyone you follow, it shows you only the recent Tweets of the person whose email you are reading, whether or not you follow them on Twitter. (A Xobni blog post went up briefly about it and then was taken down, but not before I was able to grab the screenshot at right).

Instead of replicating Twitter outright, it shows you the Tweets in the context of an email to help you learn more about the person with whom you are communicating. This is consistent with the way Xobni brings up similar information about a contact from Facebook or LinkedIn or Skype. If you don’t know the person, it gives you some more context. If you do, it gives you something personal to talk about. (Threadsy, which launched at this year’s TC50, also shows Tweets in context alongside emails).
With both the full Facebook stream and now Twitter built into the product, chances are you’ll see what each contact has been doing recently. Xobni also lets you reply via Twitter, and follow a contact from within its application.
One of Xobni’s investors is Vinod Khosla, who told me a few weeks ago that Xobni is getting “great traction.” I’ve since heard that the product is approaching 3 million downloads.

Source: TechCrunch